Field of the Disclosure
Certain aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communications and, more particularly, to evolved or enhanced machine type communication(s) (eMTC) operations in shared radio frequency spectrum (SRFS).
Description of the Related Art
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE)/LTE-Advanced systems and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can simultaneously support communication for multiple wireless terminals. Each terminal communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from the terminals to the base stations. This communication link may be established via a single-input single-output, multiple-input single-output or a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system.
A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of wireless devices. Wireless devices may include user equipments (UEs). Some UEs may be considered machine-type communication (MTC) UEs, which may include remote devices, that may communicate with a base station, another remote device, or some other entity. Machine type communications (MTC) may refer to communication involving at least one remote device on at least one end of the communication and may include forms of data communication which involve one or more entities that do not necessarily need human interaction. MTC UEs may include UEs that are capable of MTC communications with MTC servers and/or other MTC devices through Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMN), for example.
Shared radio frequency spectrum (SRFS) includes radio frequency spectrum that is unlicensed, and thus usable by large number and variety of devices, including, for example, Wi-Fi devices operating according to versions of the IEEE 802.11 standard. Devices utilizing SRFS may perform listen before talk (LBT) operations. LBT is generally the operation of receiving for a short period of time on a frequency band and determining that no other device is transmitting on that frequency band before transmitting on that frequency band.